DBAE in Hong Kong

Just a few brief lines to keep you in touch and to say thank you to so many of
you who helped me through this.
I have just completed a unit/workshop here in Hong Kong teaching certified
secondary and primary school teachers a little about DBAE. All the participants
were local HK Chinese working in the local HK schools.
Hong Kong is looking toward the implimentation of DBAE into its schools as a
teaching model, I questions this. I will be brief.
Finance: there is none not for the schools and especially not for art, where and
how to buy all these visuals, we have a museum but not with resouces of the USA,
there artists but not to be brought into the schools.
Time: teachers teach 45 students every 45 minutes, logistically this makes DBAE
very difficult.
Teaching Methods: the teacher is the ultimate model to be revered. Opportunity
for Q and A and discussion is minimal.
Curriculum: highly structured, each subject has it criteria to cross bounderies
is difficult.
DBAE if approached from the wrong direction leads toward a step by step recipe
type approach which adds to the already over structured approach in the HK
schools.
If approached correctly offers a model that must and can be adapted to work in
many environments. That offers the teacher a selection of approaches from which
to choose to enhance his/her teaching. It also can add value and credence to art
education much need in the education system if art is to remain in schools as a
subject in its own right.
My goal then which I realized as I worked through this workshop with these
teachers was not to offer a preconceived method to be literaly absorbed and
implimented but rather a choice an alternative and a means to make personnal
decission to create an individual lesson suitable to the needs of Hong Kong in
1996.
This is just a few words to let you know we try many things in Hong Kong and we
work hard so that they might suceed. Thank you for reading.